I am setting up my theater room using the following:

Pioneer Kuro 60 inch plasma 150fd
B&W 804s for fronts
HTM3S center
Ds8 dipolar rears
Sunfire Signature EQ sub
ND preamp and amp


I want to get the best sound possible. I will sit 10' from the monitor so that i am equal with the distance from my fronts from one another. I am trying to create as close to an equalateral triangle as possible.

!) QUESTION- That will put my fronts around 1' from the side walls. Is that enough? They will be around 2 1//2' from front wall.

2) Because I am only sitting 10' from monitor I will be 13' ft from my back wall. That seems pretty far away from the rear wall.

a) Is that an acoustic issue? Does it help or hurt being so far away?
b) What kind of acoustic treatment should I use on the back wall- absorbant shields or dissonance or none?

3) I want to do a good job with acoustic shielding.

a) I am thinking a shield on the front wall behind each front speaker (excluding center).
b) First reflection points on side wall using mirror trick.

1) Should i do ceiling first reflection point (flat drywall)?
2) I have carpet on the floor.

c) What thickness should I use on the absorbant shields 1" or 2"?

d) How important are bass traps and where should I put them in the top 4 corners or just the middle of the four corners?


THANKS FOR THE ADVICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You asked many good questions. Room treatment is a deep subject, and a complete answer requires far more than will fit into a single reply here. So here's the short version. All rooms need:

* Broadband (not tuned) bass traps straddling as many corners as you can manage, including the wall-ceiling corners. More bass traps on the rear wall behind helps even further. You simply cannot have too much bass trapping. Real bass trapping, that is - thin foam and thin fiberglass don't work to a low enough frequency.

* Mid/high frequency absorption at the first reflection points on the side walls and ceiling.

* Some additional amount of mid/high absorption and/or diffusion on any large areas of bare parallel surfaces, such as opposing walls or the ceiling if the floor is reflective. Diffusion on the rear wall behind you is also useful in larger rooms.

For the complete story see my Acoustics FAQ. (http://www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html)

There's a lot of additional non-sales technical information on my company's site - articles, videos, test tones and other downloads - here:

www.realtraps.com

--Ethan